Adiabatic loading of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a 3D optical lattice

We experimentally investigate the adiabatic loading of a Bose-Einstein condensate into an optical lattice potential. The generation of excitations during the ramp is detected by a corresponding decrease in the visibility of the interference pattern observed after free expansion of the cloud. We focus on the superfluid regime, where we show that the limiting time scale is related to the redistribution of atoms across the lattice by single-particle tunneling

Entanglement interferometry for precision measurement of atomic scattering properties

We report on a two-particle matter wave interferometer realized with pairs of trapped 87Rb atoms. Each pair of atoms is confined at a single site of an optical lattice potential. The interferometer is realized by first creating a coherent spin-mixture of the two atoms and then tuning the inter-state scattering length via a Feshbach resonance. The selective change of the inter-state scattering length leads to an entanglement dynamics of the two-particle state that can be detected in a Ramsey interference experiment. This entanglement dynamics is employed for a precision measurement of atomic interaction parameters. Furthermore, the interferometer allows to separate lattice sites with one or two atoms in a non-destructive way.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Upscaling of bottom-generated turbulence in large-scale 3D models for sediment transport in estuaries and coastal zones

Currently used 3D numerical sediment transport models still fail to make good quantitative predictions. To a great extent, this can be attributed to the inadequate description of physical processes which occur at the subgrid scale level. From flume experiments it is known that particle-turbulence interactions near the bed significantly change the effective roughness experienced by the overlying water column. This results in different transport rates if not accounted for.From a theoretical perspective, bed load transport, sheet flow and fluid mud flow are all occurrences of supersaturated suspension flow in the inner near-bed layer comprising the viscous sublayer and the transient layer. Its thickness increases with sediment load, since particle-particle interactions (four-way coupling effects) consume considerable amounts of the available stream power. In order to know how much energy is left over to compute the transport capacity of the outer, fully-developed layer, it is necessary to quantify the energy budget in the inner layer.This is a difficult task. Every modelling approach has its draw-backs and limitations. Lagrangean particle tracking is hopeless, since the required number of particles to approach field conditions is much too high, and the volumes occupied by the particles cannot be neglected. Grain sizes are non-uniform in nature and concentrations near the bed very high, making it very difficult to give an accurate description of the momentum exchange between fluid and solid phase, which accounts for particle collisions. Therefore, in view of large-scale applications, a one-fluid approach is adopted. This implies that the momentum equation is solved for the suspension, together with a turbulence closure model and the sediment mass balance.Since the thickness of the supersaturated inner layer mostly is very small relative to the water depth and the vertical discretization in large scale applications, it is not possible to resolve this layer with a traditional low-Reynolds model approach, which requires a very fine grid. A new approach is proposed, where a modified Prandtl-mixing length (PML) model is used for the bed layer, and a new low-Reynolds model is applied in the outer layers. In this way it is possible to obtain a correct behaviour for tidal oscillating flow in estuaries, where low-Re effects enter high in the water column during slack water.The correction factor for the PML eddy viscosity and the damping functions for the low-Re k-epsilon turbulence model are constructed based on theoretical constraints, DNS and LES generated data, as well as experimental flume data. In parallel, LES and improved two-layer low-Re models are developed to simulate flow over rough bottoms without and with sediment, in order to generate data very close to the bed surface, where no measurements can be made. These additional data are used to help interpret experimental flume data, which always show relatively high experimental errors, and to extend the new damping functions for the cases with bottom roughness and suspended sediment.Preliminary results of the new coarse grid RANS model for open-channel flow with various roughness conditions without and with suspended sediment will be shown, compared to LES results for flow over a wavy bottom, low-Reynolds RANS results over rough bottom and experimental flume data

Spin squeezing of high-spin, spatially extended quantum fields

Investigations of spin squeezing in ensembles of quantum particles have been limited primarily to a subspace of spin fluctuations and a single spatial mode in high-spin and spatially extended ensembles. Here, we show that a wider range of spin-squeezing is attainable in ensembles of high-spin atoms, characterized by sub-quantum-limited fluctuations in several independent planes of spin-fluctuation observables. Further, considering the quantum dynamics of an $f=1$ ferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, we demonstrate theoretically that a high degree of spin squeezing is attained in multiple spatial modes of a spatially extended quantum field, and that such squeezing can be extracted from spatially resolved measurements of magnetization and nematicity, i.e.\ the vector and quadrupole magnetic moments, of the quantum gas. Taking into account several experimental limitations, we predict that the variance of the atomic magnetization and nematicity may be reduced as far as 20 dB below the standard quantum limits.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Coherent collisional spin dynamics in optical lattices

We report on the observation of coherent, purely collisionally driven spin dynamics of neutral atoms in an optical lattice. For high lattice depths, atom pairs confined to the same lattice site show weakly damped Rabi-type oscillations between two-particle Zeeman states of equal magnetization, induced by spin changing collisions. This paves the way towards the efficient creation of robust entangled atom pairs in an optical lattice. Moreover, measurement of the oscillation frequency allows for precise determination of the spin-changing collisional coupling strengths, which are directly related to fundamental scattering lengths describing interatomic collisions at ultracold temperatures.Comment: revised version; 4 pages, 5 figure

Precision measurement of spin-dependent interaction strengths for spin-1 and spin-2 87Rb atoms

We report on precision measurements of spin-dependent interaction-strengths in the 87Rb spin-1 and spin-2 hyperfine ground states. Our method is based on the recent observation of coherence in the collisionally driven spin-dynamics of ultracold atom pairs trapped in optical lattices. Analysis of the Rabi-type oscillations between two spin states of an atom pair allows a direct determination of the coupling parameters in the interaction hamiltonian. We deduce differences in scattering lengths from our data that can directly be compared to theoretical predictions in order to test interatomic potentials. Our measurements agree with the predictions within 20%. The knowledge of these coupling parameters allows one to determine the nature of the magnetic ground state. Our data imply a ferromagnetic ground state for 87Rb in the f=1 manifold, in agreement with earlier experiments performed without the optical lattice. For 87Rb in the f=2 manifold the data points towards an antiferromagnetic ground state, however our error bars do not exclude a possible cyclic phase.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Quantum Walk in Position Space with Single Optically Trapped Atoms

The quantum walk is the quantum analogue of the well-known random walk, which forms the basis for models and applications in many realms of science. Its properties are markedly different from the classical counterpart and might lead to extensive applications in quantum information science. In our experiment, we implemented a quantum walk on the line with single neutral atoms by deterministically delocalizing them over the sites of a one-dimensional spin-dependent optical lattice. With the use of site-resolved fluorescence imaging, the final wave function is characterized by local quantum state tomography, and its spatial coherence is demonstrated. Our system allows the observation of the quantum-to-classical transition and paves the way for applications, such as quantum cellular automata.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Impact of polysialylated CD56 on natural killer cell cytotoxicity

Moebius J, Widera D, Schmitz J, Kaltschmidt C, Pichaczek C. Impact of polysialylated CD56 on natural killer cell cytotoxicity. BMC IMMUNOLOGY. 2007;8(1):13